The funeral service takes place for those executed at Bykivnia forest, outside Kiev, Ukraine. 817 Ukrainian civilians (out of some 100,000) executed by Bolsheviks at Bykivnia in 1930s/1940s are reburied.
The Bykivnia graves (Ukrainian: Биківнянські могили) is a National Historic Memorial next to the former village of Bykivnia (Ukrainian: Биківня, Russian: Быковня, Polish: Bykownia) within Kyiv woodland, Bykivnia Forest. During the Stalinist period in the Soviet Union, it was one of the unmarked mass grave sites where the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, disposed of thousands of executed "enemies of the Soviet state". Bykivnia as a residential place still exists as an oscillated locality with the same Bykivnia Forest. The National Memorial is located across Brovarskyi prospect from Bykivnia next to the former fishery Soviet farm Rybne in the thick of the woods.
The number of dead bodies buried there is estimated between "dozens of thousand," to 30,000, to 100,000 though some estimates place the number as high as 200,000.